1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a wide-band optical amplifier for generating an ultrashort optical pulse, an optical pulse generator using the wide-band optical amplifier, and an optical instrument using the optical pulse generator.
2. Description of the Related Art
Femtosecond pulse lasers are, for example, utilized in the field of spectroscopy by taking advantage of their high temporal resolution. Numerous phenomena such as the phase relaxation, internal conversion, photochemical reactions, and molecular vibration characteristically occur in the domain of femtoseconds. Thus, the applicability of the femtosecond pulse lasers has been expanded. The above-mentioned phenomena occur at very fast time scales such as at the rates of several dozen femtoseconds or less. Accordingly, femtosecond pulse laser sources that can deal with faster time scales are desired.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2001-066653
In attempts to achieve further shorter pulses, it is desired to further increase the temporal resolution in order to observe faster phenomena. In other words, femtosecond pulse laser sources are desired which can generate optical pulses whose durations are as short as less than five femtoseconds or on the order of the attosecond.